Troll

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This page is about the player species. For the monster, see Troll (monster). If you were looking for monstrous trolls in general, see List of trolls.

Trolls are like Ogres, but even nastier. They have thick, knobbly skins of any colour from putrid green to mucky brown, which are covered in patches of thick fur, and their mouths are full of ichor-dripping fangs. They can rip creatures apart with their claws, and regenerate very quickly from even the most terrible wounds. They learn slowly indeed - as slowly as High Elves - and need a great amount of food to survive.

Innate Abilities

• Shaggy Fur 1 and Tough Skin 2: Trolls get +3 AC.
• Claws 3: Trolls have claws for hands, as well as an unstated to-hit bonus when using them. These claws inflict heavy bleeding and can decapitate hydras.
• Gourmand: Trolls can eat chunks at any time.
• Regeneration 2: Trolls heal very quickly.
• Fast Metabolism 3+: On top of the +3 hunger penalty from this mutation, trolls receive an additional +3 racial penalty, for an unmatched base metabolism of 9 food/turn.
• Saprovore 2: Trolls can tolerate rotten meat, and have a reduced nutrition penalty from eating contaminated meat.
• Trolls are large and can use giant clubs and giant spiked clubs (unlike smaller species), but their bodies do not fit into boots, gloves, gauntlets, helmets, or most body armour. Bucklers are too small for them to use, but they can handle shields and large shields easily.
• Trolls are large enough to attack normally while standing in shallow water, but they still move slowly in it.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Fighter, Gladiator, Monk, Hunter
• Zealots: Berserker, Death Knight, Healer
• Mages: Wizard

Level Bonuses

• +1 strength every 3rd level.
• 30% more HP than average.
• 20% less MP than average.
• +3 magic resistance per level.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Trolls start with the skills and equipment listed for their background, with these exceptions:

• Incompatible body armour is replaced with an animal skin or robe.
• Helmets are replaced with caps.
• Meat rations replace bread rations, and trolls receive an extra ration.
• Any Armour skill is replaced with Dodging.
• If their background does not start with Unarmed Combat skill and offers a choice of weapon, trolls have the extra option of "claws" (and Unarmed Combat skill).
• Troll hunters are offered a choice of large rocks instead of javelins.

Difficulty of Play

Despite terrible aptitudes in many skills, Trolls are a very easy species. They have extremely high health and regenerate quickly, and they excel in Unarmed Combat. Specifically, Trolls enjoy +6 damage in unarmed melee combat (from the Claws 3 mutation), a passive +4 to hit bonus, and their attacks occasionally inflict the bleeding condition upon warm- or cold-blooded enemies. (For a short period of time, enemies bleeding from a Troll attack will lose 9% of their health per turn.) Thanks to their large size, Trolls can also throw large rocks. With innate penetration and very high damage, even at low (or no) skill in Throwing, large rocks are easily the most damaging thrown weapons in the game. Trolls' have a very fast metabolism, but their Gourmand intrinsic allows them to eat everything, at any time. Assuming you stick to eating corpses whenever possible, you can generally stay at full or above for the majority of the game and still have more than enough permafood to survive some of the optional corpse-less branches, should you choose to do them.

While they have a huge health pool, Trolls do tend to have a harder time than most species when it comes to getting good AC and EV. Trolls can only wear caps/wizard hats and cloaks in their peripheral armor slots, and can only wear robes, animal skins, troll leather armor, and the various dragon armors on their torso. Do note that if you are relying on unarmed combat with your Troll, it is often a good idea to stick to armors with encumbrance rating of -11 or lighter.

Trolls' large size gives a small, direct malus to evasion, which is also hindered by their low dexterity and, to a lesser extent, by their poor dodging aptitude. Nonetheless, training Dodging on Trolls is typically a very good idea—it will just take a larger experience investment to reach good levels of EV. Putting one's stat up points into dexterity every three levels is highly recommended, unless you are actively relying on casting spells—and not just planning to cast spells at some point down the line—in which case going for either dexterity or intelligence would be wise.

Trolls are too large to use bucklers, but Trolls are still extremely lethal in unarmed combat, even when wielding a shield, and the added damage mitigation is generally worth it on Trolls using their claws.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	-2	Armour	-2	Spellcasting	-5
		Dodging	-2
Maces & Flails	-1	Shields	-1	Conjurations	-3
Axes	-2	Stealth	-5	Hexes	-4
Polearms	-2			Summonings	-3
Staves	-2	Invocations	-1	Necromancy	-2
Unarmed Combat	0	Evocations	-3	Translocations	-3
Throwing	-1	Shapeshifting	-1	Alchemy	-3
				Fire Magic	-3
Short Blades	-2			Ice Magic	-3
Long Blades	-2			Air Magic	-4
Ranged Weapons	-4	Experience	-1	Earth Magic	-1

Strategy

First, a quick note: Trolls should not use unarmed combat against hydras, as your claws will count as non-flaming, bladed weapons against them. Large rocks, powerful attack wands, god abilities, or simply retreating are your best bets.

As for skill development strategy, Trolls' intelligence and magic aptitudes are some of the worst in the game. This doesn't rule out magic, however; it simply means that Trolls will require a higher investment of experience compared to (almost) any other species. However, many level 1 and level 2 spells, such as Swiftness, Repel Missiles, Apportation, Blink, Summon Butterflies, and the like, provide a lot of return for their skill investment. Confusing Touch is particularly useful to Trolls, since they will nearly always being fighting unarmed. Even higher level spells are often worth the investment on Trolls, after you have gotten your offense and basic defenses up to snuff; again, bad aptitudes mean that it just takes more experience and a bit more time.

As with many species, Evocations can be a great resource. If and when you have access to some of the items such as sack of spiders, rods, wands, and the elemental evocables (phial of floods, stone of tremors, etc.), evocations can provide a lot versatility and power from a single skill.

God choice tends to be a major factor in rounding out one's character, and Trolls are no exception. A few recommendations are below; note that this list is by no means comprehensive or exhaustive.

Recommended

• Okawaru's Heroism is cheap in piety cost (so use it liberally), comes online extremely fast, and the temporary +5 to skill level is a greater boon to Unarmed Combat than to other melee. Finesse uses more piety and can't be spammed, but it more or less doubles your melee damage output when active. One should not hang too much hope on Okawaru's random gifts, but at least any armour he gives you is guaranteed to be something that your species can wear (though this does not by any means guarantee it will be something you will want to wear).
• Trog's abilities require no skill training to activate, and provide berserk, magic resistance, even greater health regeneration, and very strong summons.
• Elyvilon's normal hunger restraints are less of a concern for the voracious troll, who benefits immensely from excellent panic buttons and the ability to pacify most dangerous opponents with smite targeting.
• Jiyva can be a powerful and interesting god choice for Trolls, as for many other characters. Early altars are very rare, but if you see one, consider giving Jiyva a spin. However, if you cannot access Jiyva in the early dungeon, passing up on any god choices until late Lair will dramatically hurt your chances to win the game.
• Ashenzari provides sizable boosts to your skills through cursed equipment. Scry is a powerful ability, and the other passive bonuses one enjoys from worshiping Ashenzari are nice. For unarmed trolls, the lack of a weapon to curse may make it harder to gain piety, however, especially in early game.
• Kikubaaqudgha guarantees an easy means to branch out into Necromancy, a spell school that gives a lot of utility and power within a single skill.